Friday, March 11, 2016

Crazy Sh*t that Happened at The White House

1. I was invited.

Let’s just start off with this. The fact that I was invited to the
White House for the September 25 State Dinner for Chinese President
Xi and his wife Madame Peng is just incredible.

Check out the guest list here and you will see of course President
Obama and Michelle Obama, President Xi and his wife Peng Liyuan.
You will also see:
Mark Zuckerberg
Tim Cook
Misty Copeland
Sonia Sotomayor
Larry Ellison
Joe Biden
Lee Daniels
Marc Benioff
Madeleine Albright
John Kerry
And buried deep in that list you see this:

Ms. Christi Parsons, Correspondent, Los Angeles Times

Ms. Melanie Gao

My sister is not only a correspondent for the Los Angeles Times, she
was also President of the White House Correspondents’ Association
last year. She’s sort of a big deal in Washington. When she got
invited to the State Dinner she forwarded me the invite. “Are you
interested? See below!” she said.

Yeah. I was interested.

I knew that I was one of the least significant invitees that evening
and I could not have cared less. I was excited just to be in the
same room with all those powerful and beautiful people. I fully
expected to be seated in the back of the dining room, right next to
the kitchen, and I was fine with that. In fact, I wouldn’t have
been surprised to learn that I had been seated in some sort of
overflow room and I would have even been fine with that too.

That’s why #5 on this list was especially surprising.

2. We took an uber to the White House.

I wasn’t sure how we would get to the White House that evening but
for some reason I imagined the President sends a limo for you. Or
perhaps a black Suburban with bullet-proof glass.

It turns out he
does not.

You have to figure out transportation on your own and my
sister and I called an uber to take us there.

It was a Prius.
3. I got sniffed down by a German Shepherd even though I was wearing
an evening gown.

It takes four stops to get into the White House for a State Dinner.

At the first stop they checked our IDs.

At the second stop they checked our invitations and made sure our
names were on the guest list. I guess they wanted to avoid a replay
of this.

At the third stop we got sniffed down by a German Shepherd but the
way they did it was fascinating. They asked me to stand on a metal
platform. On my right was a giant fan. On my left was a metal
grate and behind the grate was a secret service officer with a dog.
The fan was blowing my scent over to the dog, who was able to sniff
me down without ever actually touching me or my designer dress.
Amazing.

Finally, they ran our purses through an X-ray and we walked through a
metal detector.

At last, we were cleared to enter the White House itself.

As Christi and I approached the White House doors, an older man was
approaching in a wheelchair. We slowed down to allow him space to
get in the door in front of us. He stood up from the chair and
walked into the White House as if he had been there a thousand times
before.

Which, apparently, he had.

“Oh my god. That’s Henry Kissinger,” Christi whispered to me.

We walked into the White House behind Henry Kissinger.

The Parsons sisters.

From Alabama.

From the farm house on Hargrove Road.

Those girls, the Parsons sisters.

Walked into the White House behind Henry Kissinger.

Crazy sh*t. I am telling you.
4. Going through a receiving line with the Obamas is like going
through a car wash.

2015 was an amazing and blessed year for me - I got to meet
the Obamas not just once but twice. So I feel like I’ve got a body of experience to
work from here. Christi advised me not to try to start a conversation
with them, just let them do all the talking. She told me not to
initiate a hug or a kiss or anything like that, I should let them
initiate all the greetings.

This was my first attempt at a receiving line with the Obamas, in
April 2015 at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner:

And this was the State Dinner in September 2015:

I think there’s a marked improvement, don’t you?

It’s because I figured out how to approach the receiving line. Just
put it in neutral and take your foot off the brake. Just like in
the car wash. The Obamas will start a sweet and charming
conversation with you, and when it’s time for you to move along, an
extremely polite uniformed military officer behind you will press on
your elbow until you move along. It’s actually the easiest thing in
the world.

The Obamas were always charming and stately and funny and real, all at the same
time. President Obama had met all the sisters back at the WHCA dinner
in April, so when just Christi and I showed up at the State Dinner
in September, he asked about the other sisters. That floored me.
He remembered that we have two other sisters.
5. They seated me next to the Number Two in the Chinese delegation.

When we entered the dining room Christi and I weaved our way among
the tables to find our place cards, which had been hand written by White House Chief Calligrapher Pat Blair. My name has never looked as
beautiful to me as it did that night, written so delicately on a
beautiful ivory card, embossed with a gold White House seal, propped
on a solid gold place card holder.

I introduced myself to the gentleman on my left and asked him to
help me pronounce his name. “Li Zhan Shu”, he said slowly. “栗战书。
我很高兴认识您。我叫高美玲,” I said. “It’s nice to meet you, Mr. Li. I’m Gao
Meiling.” I wasn’t planning to use my Chinese name when I
introduced myself but it just slipped out. Even though I hadn’t
used that name in years. He remarked that I spoke Chinese and I
told him I had lived in Beijing for six years. Then we both went on
to meet our other table mates. There were eight of us at the round
table.

A few minutes later President Obama and President Xi made some
openings remarks and then the first course was served. As we were
eating, Christi leaned over to me and said softly, “That Chinese man
next to you is the Number Two in the Chinese delegation.”

“What does that mean?” I asked.

“They rank everyone in the delegation and the guy next to you is the
second highest ranking person, just after President Xi himself.
He’s the head of the Communist Party in China.”

I whispered to her softly, “What the hell??? Why did they put me next to
him? I should be next to the kitchen! Why did they put me next to
the second most important person in the freaking delegation???”
“I don’t know but these things are always intentional. Just stay
calm and act normal. But don’t start a conversation with him. Wait
and see if he starts a conversation with you. The man on his left
is the Director for China Affairs on the National Security Council.
The two of them are supposed to be having a serious conversation.
If Mr. Li gets tired of that conversation, he might turn to you to
talk and if he does, you can talk with him. But don’t keep him from
talking with the National Security Council guy.”

I stirred my mushroom soup and wondered who in the world thought it
was a good idea to seat me next to the Number Two in the
delegation. And I wondered why no one had given me a heads up. In
my world, we would give people a heads up about that sort of thing.

But we were most definitely not in my world here.

For most of the dinner Mr. Li did talk with the National Security
Council advisor on his left. But around dessert, their conversation
died down and Mr. Li sat quietly for a moment and ate his dessert - lemon curd with
buttermilk custard sauce.

Dammit. Why do I always do that? The only guidance I had for the
whole entire evening was to not start a conversation with the guy to
my left. And I started a conversation with him.

But he was gracious and sweet about it. He said he was enjoying his
dinner and then we chatted about Beijing. It turns out his house is
not too far from where we lived in Beijing, and we knew a lot of the
same places. I asked if it was okay to ask about his family and he
said it was, so he told me about his children and I told him about
mine. And then dinner was over and it was time to move into another
hall for a musical performance.

Which was more crazy sh*t.

6. The musical performance was not what you would expect.

Okay, let’s talk about what you would expect. It’s a post-dinner
musical performance. It’s a delegation from China.

A private cello concert from Yo-Yo Ma, right?

Or maybe a performance from Misty Copeland, the first
African-American dancer to be promoted to principal at the American
Ballet Theatre.

Nope. It was Ne-Yo. Yes, that Ne-Yo. Hip-hop star Ne-Yo. Agent
Deveroux in the film “Sharknado 3” Ne-Yo.

He sang three songs - the last one was the one we all know.I knew my rent was gonna be late about a week ago
I worked my a$$ off but I still can’t pay it though.
But I’ve got just enough to get up in this club,
and have me a good time,
before my time is up.
I kid you not. This is how we entertained the Chinese delegation.
Don’t get me wrong, I love Ne-Yo as much as the next person. But to
entertain a delegation from China…? It made about as much sense as
seating me next to Li Zhan Shu.

I do want to insert here that I have a problem with the lyrics of
that song, and I’ve lectured my kids a few times about what to do if
you can’t pay your rent.

You make a partial payment with whatever money you do have, make a
commitment to pay the rest by a certain date, and then stay in and
watch Netflix that night.

Which granted, is not a song anyone would buy.

7. Only the stars had their phones out.

Apparently it is not diplomatically correct to tweet pictures of
yourself at a State Dinner. None of the political or business
figures ever had their phones out. Not even Apple CEO Tim Cook.

But the celebrities were constantly taking pictures and posting
them.

I sat next to Lee Daniels’ mom at the performance and she was
lovely. She introduced her son as “Lee” and at first I thought he
was vision-impaired because he was wearing sunglasses indoors. At
night.

Then I realized he was just famous.

Incidentally, he’s the director of a movie I loved very much - “The
Butler.” It takes place in the White House in the 1960s. And I sat
next to Lee, the director of that movie. In the White House.

Crazy sh*t. I am telling you.

8. They took away the place card holders before dessert.

Do you remember I mentioned the solid gold place holders for our
name cards? Just before dessert was served the waitress came around
and took them all up.

Christi told me that if they don’t do that, some people will steal
them.

America, please.

9. As the clock struck 11:00, it was over.

The musical performance wrapped up promptly at 11:00 and our
enchanted evening at the White House was over. Our exit from the
presidential residence was unceremonious. One minute we were in the
regal glow of that historic mansion and 30 seconds later we were
standing on a street corner in DC, waiting for the pedestrian light
to turn white so we could cross with all the other normal and
regular citizens.

How can everything be so magical one minute, and the next minute
you’re standing on a cement curb, waiting for a street light to
change?

It was like we dreamed the whole thing.

But I know I wasn’t dreaming because the next morning I woke up and
found this picture on my iPhone:

You never cease to surprise me! Sometimes I wonder if I translate them into Chinese and put them in social media what would happen :)

What's strange is, I never heard of this second in line guy before in my life - of course I'm not a fan of politics but still. Then I searched (I can't say I googled it for reasons you know) for it and he is really important. It's strange how an important guy like him can stay in the shadow.

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About Me

Why is this blog called "The Downtown Diner"? If blogs were restaurants, mine would be a downtown diner. The food isn't haute cuisine and it's not even necessarily all that nutritious. Basically I'm the grilled cheese sandwich of blogosphere. But the waitress here knows your name and she's always glad to see you. Stop by whenever you're in the neighborhood and need a smile.